About Student Privacy in Handshake

Why Syncing Data into Handshake Matters

To get the most out of Handshake, and to ensure your students are accurately qualified for jobs, it’s critical to sync data to Handshake.

Importing student data is a vital step in implementation and makes sure that:

Data is is up to date
- This information is imported directly from your student information system (SIS).
Your students can discover amazing jobs and internships
- Students with majors, GPA, work authorization, and coursework are much more likely to be contacted by an employer.
Employers can trust student qualifications
- Major, GPA, education level, and school year are all functionally tied to requirements on job postings in Handshake. Importing this information will ensure that students are qualified for positions they should be qualified for, and employers can quickly rely on the accuracy of the application. This in turn increases employer engagement across the platform.
Students have a great experience upon their first login
- This first experience is crucial for long term student engagement.
Analytics and reports are relevant
- Schools that don’t sync a robust dataset have less students engaged, and a much harder time reporting on their impact. Importing even the most basic required fields empowers you to build reports and explore activity by particular cohorts.

Explore each of the collapsible headers for more information!

Student Profiles and Privacy

Student profiles are automatically set to private when their profiles are uploaded by the school, or created by the student.

During the account activation process, also known as student onboarding in Handshake, students are given the option to choose their profile visibility after agreeing to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Note that students can also choose to make their profile shareable outside of Handshake. To learn more about this, please refer to How to Make Your Profile Public and Share Your Profile Link

Students are in complete control of the information they choose to share and with whom. Learn more about student privacy options in Profile Privacy Options in Handshake.

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Student Onboarding Process

When a student is invited by their school to join Handshake, they'll be required to log in, set a password, and be prompted through the onboarding process.

To learn more about a students on-boarding process, refer to About Student On-boarding.

Data

Students own the data that they upload and enter into Handshake. We only use data as described in our Privacy Policy, Terms of Service, and in accordance with our agreements made with Instituion Partners. There are four states a student can be in when sharing their data on Handshake.

Hidden (default upon data sync)
Activated Student (agreed to ToS, and opted for "Private" profile)
Activated Student (agreed to ToS, and opted for "Community" profile)
Activated Student (agreed to ToS, and opted for "Employers" profile with additional opt in for GPA)

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For more information on student data and security, refer to Handshake's Security website.

Imported Data Fields

Even though students are in control of this data, we know that GPA, demographic, and identifying information can be sensitive. We have a variety of measures in place to ensure this information is protected from employers or other students.

For additional details on importing student data, refer to Importing Student Data.

GPA

A student's GPA is never viewable unless the student expressly opts-in to make it public. If a student does choose to make their GPA public, this information is visible to employers only. Other students or alumni won't be able to view another student's GPA, even if the GPA is visible by employers.

Blocking a User

Student and employer users can block one another to maintain privacy and further curate a positive experience on Handshake.

The following interactions cannot happen between two users if one of them has been blocked by the other.

The blocked user cannot:
- Successfully send a message to the other user on Handshake
  - This includes campaigns and bulk messages.
- View the other user's profile or activity
- View the other user in people search, event attendee lists, job pages, feed, and other aspects of Handshake.

Any previous messages between the two users will be removed from view.

Refer to Blocking A User on Handshake to learn more about how students can block other users.